Andrews comments about losing Tui

Hello Andrew and family,

I would like to start off with my deepest sorrow for you and your families loss. We as bird lovers tend to take advantage of the fact that our bird will NEVER fly away. A definante mistake on our behalf. A bird is a flyer and if the timing is right and the conditions are right they might just make asses of our judgment. I have lost birds in the past and so had countless others. Yes it is so hard to get over but we as pet owners should never take for granted that our bird is never going to fly away. We should take all the percautions to make sure that our birds are secure at all times. I lost very rare and expensive birds in the past and I have from that time forward have been a great believer of clipping wings. The money end of the bird is not the important issue, it should always be the love issue. We all have lost a dog or cat to illness and we feel as if we lost a family member or a child. Birds are the same to us and we should at all costs be the provider of saftey for them. I feel so bad for you in a time like this. I have been there and the feelings are so hard to get through. In time it will be easier to handle and it will be a learning experiance for you. I know right now thats the last thing you want to hear, but in time it does mend a broken heart. A broken heart is a very hard thing to get over but we must keep our heads up and look forward. When the time is right you might want another bird, but please try not to replace the one you lost. You can never replace the one you lost. Believe me I have done this in the past and I was the one that was very disappointed that the new bird did things so much different then the one I lost. That was a huge mistake. I have learned over the years that every bird has his/her own personallity and just because the bird looks like the one you lost it is not.


Again I would like to say that I am trully sorry for your loss.

Mario

This is a post Andrew made about Tui on another forum. I am not sure if you guys have seen it. It is so sad, Tui is an incredible bird.

Today is May 23rd, 12 days after losing my companion Tui. Please feel free to link to this or copy and post it elsewhere.

First I would just like to say how blown away I am with the amount of international concern, help and support I have received from all over the world regarding my loss. From those in Grey & other bird forum groups, to the many new viewers of Tui's youtube page, to the many wonderful people I have meet as I walk along the areas people have reported hearing something strange and calling me. I hope that many people will forgive me if I am unable to get back to most of the comments personally, I do try, but right at this point any time sitting at the computer is time I could be out looking. It has taken to today for me to finally decide to move on and not spend almost all my time focused on the search. This is not to say I have given up, just that I can no longer allocate all of my time to it. Just a few hours a day now.

I think if anyone who has seen the video's I have on youtube will know I have constantly said never allow your parrot the opportunity to get outside or chance to fly away. I am particularly unsettled by this lack in judgment on my part because just a few days before I had made a comment to my friend that at times it seemed as if I was so limited in my ability and freedom to do much. By choice I rarely went out to socialize and when I did my thoughts were usually about Tui being alone and bored and not on me having a life.

It troubles me that just after making this comment that I suddenly thought against all my own advice, that perhaps one way to enhance Tui's quality of life was to train for Free Flight. It troubles me that I had planned on firstly starting this in an indoor venue but I went on the Balcony instead. To be fair to Tui, she did do remarkable well, she did not just fly off by choice, she came looking for me because I left her sight and caught a gust of wind. She attempted to get back and caught another, panicked and flew off with the wind.

After the initial chase and few hours search I came back and looked up what to do online. Flyers and posters where made and put in mail boxes and given to anyone I saw within a 2-3 square mile area of where I think she may have landed. Fliers are around town, newspaper and craigslist adverts were placed, Vet's notified and Pet shops. I would often hear other people walking their dogs calling out Tui's name as I was searching and the people in Lawrence Kansas have amazed me at their level of concern for me and Tui and there efforts to Help. We got a front page story in the Newspaper and a TV News story a few days later, as well as contacting many of the websites dedicated to posting lost parrots.

There have been no sitings of Tui, but lots of people hearing strange noises at night. I have almost every night in the last 12 days gone out after a call around midnight or after from mostly the same area and several times during the day for other areas. One grey was found some 40 miles away and someone knew about tui and I was contacted. It turned out not to be her. Tui's cage is on someones balcony in the area where noises are heard, and a CD of her talking is being played along with her favourite songs. Her stands and perches are in other places. I also walk around calling each day and at one point waited 7 hrs with someone who lived in the area waiting for the sound they were hearing. I thought it was a cat, but the people insist sometimes there is additional "Tui noises" they hear on the CD as well.

Here are a couple of my concerns with the whole parrot loss issue. I will in time do what I can to address them, but for now others might like to do something to secure better resources in future...

1) The Vet who found a Grey, stated that the bands are not really that helpful. They were unaware of a national log or that the bands indicate the breeder and the breeder will usually know when a parrot is lost and who it is. This may not be the case with every Vet, but it would pay to let a Vet know this any opportunity you get

2) I could not find any articles on what a parrot might do in detail once they are lost. The information is that they will stay in the area for 3 days and then get hungry and might approach someone. My experience has been people swear they hear her fly and scream at night, times when it is dark and she should be asleep. Will a domestic parrot suddenly become comfortable in trees? when they never really like being in them on leased walks. Some people say they will be lower down on the ground but again is this likely when they did not like grass when as a companion? There are no sound recordings or information on what a parrot might sound like in the wild, or if a talker will talk or revert back to squels.

Some say that they might just like being 'free' but how is this possible with a grey who is a social bird and generally timid of new things. There are just so many issue that are not addressed in any form that could be. I never saw the idea to make a CD of the bird talking and play it, which to me seems a easy and practical thing to do. Apart from the standard list of what to do when a parrot goes missing that is copied everywhere, not much else seems to be out there. No pre-recordings of wild parrots, no advice of to look in trees or the ground, no mention of so many things that run through your mind when you have lost a companion. Perhaps people that know about these issue might like to make it available. Even the terrible stuff, like how long a parrot can live when stressed, or how often parrots get used to being in the wild, and how long it might take.

Tui was banded but not chipped, I was waiting for the GSP technology to come about in chips and had no intentions of letting her have the chance to get away at all. I am intending on returning back home to New Zealand where they have some lameass excuses to continue with a ban on importing parrots. One that is founded in a extremely possibility when related to domestic parrots and not in any real evidence by statistics to the contary to the concerns they cite. But I am taking a few months to do it just in case she is found.

If I get Tui back the very first thing she will learn now is my email address. The story from Japan that surfaced with the bird stating it's own address seems such a completely common sense idea that I had never even considered. I really do hope that EVERY talking bird owner takes that tip to heart and makes it a practice.

Thanks to all the concern and comments. It really has amazed me, a rational and logical person by nature to just how much emotions can arise from the loss of a bird. And it amazes me just how much compassion there has been from complete strangers, both local helping me look and internationally from internet people. Sadly very very few people I have known longer than a few months, people who know I can't open my mouth without a story about my Tui, have offered any help looking. I guess this was a price I paid by putting my parrot before people. Yes Tui and I had an amazing bond, but it seems not so much of one with my friends

I have said to people that I realize now, for me having a companion bird was a lot like a co-dependant relationship. All my time and thoughts were about her. This is my fault, she was all I really had in a country I was in without family. She was my everything and became my excuse to stagnate socially and professionally. Now that I do not have her, I am amazed at all the possibility of travel and experience I can have without her. But like any co-dependant relationship I would give it all up to have her again, but swear things will change, who knows if they really would, I did prefer having her to an active social life.

Again thank you to all for your support and kind words and suggestion in the parrot community. I have been honest about my mistake and my feelings in the hopes that even in my worst moments, My experience with Tui can provide some insight and help for others with questions. I do hope she is found and returned, I do hope that if someone finds her and decides to keep her, that in time they will find this and email me photos and let me know how she is doing. I do hope they will allow me to still play a part in her life.

I will eventually get another Grey. It will wait until I am in New Zealand and settled. To be honest I made a error in judgment sending an email to the NZ Minister in charge of the parrot ban letting him know what an idiot I thought he was, and understood why they have a smuggling problem there. The result being that I am on the watch list for Customs and get greeted with a strip search when I enter the country .. just in case I have parrot eggs up my arse.

The breeder of Tui told me she never wanted to burst my bubble, but to her the reality is that ALL GREYS have the ability to be special, it is the quality of the time an owner gives to the bird that makes the bird who it is. In some ways this is my greatest comfort to know that while she can never be replaced in my heart; my next bird will talk the same, and act much the same and remind me in many ways of Tui. I have not given up hope, it has only been 12 days, and while this started as a thank you, it ended up being cathartic experience of ramblings as well

Andrew